The Fuck-Up
Felipe was a fuck-up. His parents said so; his sisters Aldonza and Linda said so. The school priests all but said so: Might he not be better off elsewhere? It was not a question.
“It doesn’t matter,” he murmured, trimming his mustache in the bathroom of the family’s piso. “Not when one looks this good.” He just avoided stabbing himself when Aldonza, tired of pounding on the door, burst in.
Many madrileños fail to graduate by nineteen (he told himself), and leave school to find fortune in restaurants, serving gentlemen with both Rolexes and Versace-clad women on their arms. He bribed his friend Alejandro to tell convincing lies for him at Paloma, one of Madrid’s finer establishments. As predicted, his looks (or lies) won him immediate placement among the elegant waitstaff. His new life began at 19:30.
By 20:30, he had misremembered the entire order of a devastating brunette. At 22:00, a redhead in side-slit emerald satin appeared, and his platter of angulas clattered to the floor. At 22:50 he sluiced chocolate sauce down a patron’s lush décolletage. Only Felipe’s promise to walk Alejandro’s terrier for a month moved his friend to intercede.
Señor Antonio let him stay on – sort of. “You’ll scrub dishes until a doctor confirms you’ve sprouted a brain.” That was the good news. The bad news came later: Felipe’s family kicked him out.
At the close of the following, grueling, worknight, he peeked into the banquet room. Deserted. Its tables were draped in long, fresh linens. Under one of these he slept. In the morning, Felipe raided Paloma’s pantries before starting off for Alejandro’s terrier. Brunch was expansive, delicious ... heavy. He sought a nap in his new bed.
Clinking cutlery and hungry people finally awakened him. ¡Ay, joder! There was nothing for it but to be quiet, wait, and watch an interminable succession of very pedestrian feet.
Then suddenly ... ah! Before him, dusky, smooth, unstockinged arches strained achingly upward, in wonderful shoes. Black, with thin straps clasping fine anklebones. Bejeweled black, with looped silver chains glimmering indecent suggestions at the instep. Whip-hand black, rising ten threatening centimetres.
The imperious stilettos began to stride along the table. Their gold-tipped heels commanded: “Move! Follow!” Felipe obeyed, a scuttling land crab. When they reached the end of the tablecloth, Felipe ... fucked up. An unwitting grasping. An electric brush of skin. Two startled shrieks in quick succession. Señor Antonio shouting.
Out on the sidewalk, Felipe, fuck-up, smoked scrounged cigarettes, stared at his wounded hand, wondered what next. He didn’t look up when he heard an engine idling, a door opening. He did when he heard clicking on the pavement.
The limo stood with one back door agape. A shapely leg arced through.
No voice called, but the code sparked by the pointed heel was unmistakable. It was not a question. Felipe scrambled, launched himself at the opening. Inside was the shoe’s mate, and between the pair rose fortune’s way.
Copyright © 2006 by L.S. Williams. All rights reserved.
This Hoosier freelance writer and editor has never met Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (though I used to shop in the family store). I’m a five-year fan of NaNoWriMo (nanwrimo.org). I have long written nonfiction for hire but have been shy about submitting my short stories. This is my first fiction publication!
My late literary mother always encouraged me to keep writing, but she’d blush at this title. We never could agree about that word...
Finally, I have indeed been to Madrid, but I’ll let you guess about my footwear.
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